It's a 48-43 percent race between the two, with Clinton
barely touching 48 percent by rounding in the latest ABC News/Washington Post
tracking poll. That said, it's her best result since Oct. 26, and Trump has
held numerical advantages just twice, +1 on Oct. 30 and +2 last May.

The results in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research
Associates, rest to some extent on the one-third of likely voters who say
they've already voted. They go Clinton by 51-43 percent, leaving it closer
among the two-thirds yet to vote when these interviews were completed.

Even though both candidates are remarkably unpopular,
there's more affirmative voting for Clinton than for Trump, a factor that can
motivate turnout. A majority of her supporters mainly support her, rather than
opposing Trump. That's pretty much reversed for Trump: 51 percent of his
backers mainly oppose Clinton, rather than supporting him.

Third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill
Stein have 4 percent and 2 percent support, respectively, with no
clear indication that they disproportionately take votes from either candidate.
(It's 49-44 percent, Clinton-Trump, in a two-way test.) While 6 percent of
Republicans and GOP-leaning independents back Johnson or Stein (mainly
Johnson), 5 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents do the same
(more split between Johnson and Stein.)

While they usually align, national vote preferences don't
necessarily reflect the electoral college vote (as in 2000), and the contest
is especially close in states identified by the ABC News Political Unit as
toss-ups. Indeed Clinton’s lead holds only in solid or leaning Democratic
states, with the largest share of the likely voter population. Trump leads, by
a smaller margin, in GOP-aligned states, and it's 45-48 percent, Clinton-Trump,
in the toss-ups in aggregate. (Those are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North
Carolina and New Hampshire.)

Attributes

Critical to her prospects, Clinton leads Trump by a broad
55-36 percent among likely voters in being seen as more qualified to serve as
president, and by an even wider margin, 58-32 percent, as having the better
personality and temperament for the job.

Clinton leads Trump by narrower 7-point and 8-point margins
in empathy and moral character. But it's Trump +4 on honesty, 40-44 percent -–
not a significant gap, but a comparative weakness for Clinton. She clearly
trailed Trump on this measure shortly after the FBIannounced its renewed investigation into emails linked
to her private server. And, in previous tracking data, she lagged
Trump by 9 points in trust to handle corruption in government.

Ninety-three percent of Trump's supporters see him as more
honest and trustworthy than Clinton. Marking her comparative weakness on this
attribute, fewer of her own supporters, 84 percent, see her as more honest than
Trump. Instead 11 percent say they don’t see either candidate as honest and
trustworthy.

The tables turn when it comes to Clinton’s better
attributes. Ninety-eight percent of her supporters see her as better qualified;
fewer of Trump’s, 83 percent, say that about him. Nine percent of Trump’s supporters
see Clinton as the more qualified candidate.

The difference is particularly striking on Clinton’s other
advantage: Ninety-seven percent of her supporters say she has the better
personality and temperament to serve effectively as president. Just 73 percent
of Trump’s supporters say that about him; 13 percent in Trump’s own camp rate
Clinton better on personality and temperament. (Eleven percent say neither’s is
better.)

Judgments on these attributes largely hew to partisan and
ideological lines. That said, a quarter of conservatives, peaking at 34 percent
of "somewhat" conservatives, see Clinton as more qualified than
Trump, and 29 percent and 39 percent, respectively, say she has the better
personality and temperament for high office.

Groups

In terms of vote preference, the gender gap has narrowed by
dint of a closer contest among men, now 42-45 percent, Clinton-Trump. She leads
by 12 points among women, courtesy of nonwhite women (85-9 percent) and
college-educated white women (54-38 percent).

That said, a gender gap rages in one particular population
–- 18-to-35-year-olds, known as themillennial
generation. Millennial men divide evenly between Clinton and Trump, 39-39
percent, with 14 percent for Johnson, among his best groups. Millennial women,
by contrast, support Clinton by a wide 62-27 percent.

Among other groups, Clinton has closed to an even contest
among independents, after trailing Trump by 19 points in this group Oct. 28.
She’s reached a new high among nonwhites, 77-14 percent, including typical 87
percent support from blacks and better-than-typical 72 percent from Hispanics
–- two groups critical to her fortunes on Tuesday.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline
and cellular telephone Nov. 1-4, 2016, in English and Spanish, among a random
national sample of 1,685 likely voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 2.5 points, including the
design effect. Partisan divisions are 37-31-28 percent,
Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research
Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and
tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y. See details on the survey’s
methodology here.